'Gear Blink' trademark adds fuel to Samsung smart glass fire

Blink and you may miss it

Even as the South Korean manufacturer licks patent wounds suffered in repeated courtroom defeats against Apple, Samsung appears willing ape further technology, this time from its closest ally.

The Guardian picked up a Samsung trademark application filed in Korea for something called "Samsung Gear Blink," which appears to be little more than the company's own take on Google Glass.

Taking a break from its existing wrist-based Gear wearable line, Samsung's next big thing looks an awful lot like augmented reality glasses similar to those being pioneered by none other than Google.

Samsung's trademark ambitions follow on the heels of earlier patent filings for enabling a virtual keyboard to be projected onto the hands of the person wearing it, and dueling designs as to how such technology might actually be mounted onto eyeglasses.

Don't blink

Gear Blink certainly wouldn't be Samsung's first foray into vision-powered tech, given the consumer electronics giant already includes optic recognition features in its popular smartphone line.

With that existing functionality, Galaxy S5 owners can scroll through on-screen text simply by moving their eyes up or down, while the handset keeps the display active as long as the user is looking directly at it.

For now, the trademark filing has been limited to Samsung's home turf with the Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service, although the application number 4020140033123 doesn't yet show up in a search of that website.